The Lockard family | Lifestyle
This past Friday I met up with the super-cute Lockhard family north of Phoenix. They live in a house that has nothing but desert and rolling hills just outside their frontdoor! Can’t even imagine that view every morning. Not to mention the ease of which to walk up a hill outside, camp out and shoot some lightning photos during the summer! Okay, not everything has to relate to storm chasing, but it can’t always be helped! We started off by taking a walk with little man Hayden in tow in his awesome wagon and then finished up with some time [...]
A Brooklyn bench
(please click to view on black // canon 5d mark ii, canon 16-35mm 2.8 l, 17mm, f/8.0, iso 100, 46 sec, b+w 10-stop filter // buy print) I left New York last October with a bunch of photos, but I’ve always come back to this guy as one of my favorites. I dig leading lines…or just lines in general, and this boardwalk along DUMBO had them aplenty. The boards themselves, the railings, the benches…and then the massive Manhattan Bridge in the background. This is a long exposure processed simply with #VSCOFILM. Thanks again to my buddy Rick Young for letting [...]
Cellular
(please click to view on black // canon 5d mark ii, canon 70-210mm f/4, 125mm, iso 200, f/8.0, 20 sec // buy print) Amazingly, I still have lightning shots from last summer that I haven’t posted yet! If you grabbed a copy of my Stormchasing Arizona book, you’ve likely seen this already. This was an amazing night with some spectacular lightning strikes hitting all around Casa Grande. I was so stoked when I saw the first strike from the truck and knew I could stop and line it up with this cell phone tower. Cannot wait for this season…have a [...]
Tributary
(please click to view on black // canon 5d mark ii, canon 17-40 4.0 l, 22mm, f/22, iso 100, 56 sec, b+w 10-stop // buy print) Our first stop on the Salton Sea was on the northwest shores. Rick Young took us down some random road that gave us the heebie jeebies. We had no clue if it was truly safe or if we might suddenly stumble upon a murder in progress. Yes, it’s really that creepy over there. We got out and took a beautiful stroll down a beach with the crunch of rotting fish under our feet and [...]
Hole in the sky
(please click to view on black // canon 5d mark ii, tamron 17-35 2.8, 17mm, f/16, iso 100, 1/80 // buy print) I’ll always remember this day as one of my favorites of the 2011 monsoon season. I had gotten away by myself, alone on the road, not a soul with me, no one tagging along…just me going where I thought the storms would be. It felt liberating for some reason. It also turned out to be the second day in a row where I found myself on a tornado-warned storm. The structures from the midwest weren’t there necessarily, but [...]
Sunset on the Salton Sea
(please click to view on black // canon 5d mark ii, canon 17-40 f/4 l, 17mm, iso 100, f/16, 1/4 sec // buy print) The sunset the night before in Joshua Tree was without a single cloud anywhere. It was like that video Sh*t Photographers say. All we did was whine about no clouds. Perhaps I whined the loudest, I don’t remember. I’m sure my five compadres would verify it for you. But it was like the lack of clouds that night was completely justified because of what we saw the very next evening. We couldn’t have asked for anything [...]
Prickly Pear
(please click to view on black // canon 5d mark ii, tamron 17-35 2.8, 17mm, f/20, iso 100, 0.5 sec // buy print) Back in mid-December we had some great cold fronts move through the state leaving snow on the mountains surrounding Phoenix. I must have been out in the Four Peaks and Superstition Mountains area every other night for a week. Trying to capture a sunset…trying to get the snow on the hills. This was probably one of the more gorgeous sunsets of 2011 that my camera saw. You can see the snowy Four Peaks off on the right [...]
Reaching for the stars
(please click to view on black // canon 5d mark ii, canon 17-40 f/4 l, 20mm, f/4, iso 5000, 30 sec // buy print) Since I know you skipped the italics above, PLEASE click on the image to see it fit your monitor with a sexy black border. One of the more exciting opportunities in Joshua Tree National Park was the chance to shoot some nighttime star shots, including the Milky Way. I’ve never really done that before and have always wanted to give it a shot. Props again go to my buddy Heath O’Fee for inviting me to meet [...]
Elaina + Caleb | Wedding
One of my favorite things about photographing weddings comes way before the actual day. The first time I meet a couple, I get to find out their stories. How they met. Where they went on their first date. How he proposed. The stuff that brought them to this point. Of course you only get a small slice of that story, but it’s amazing how different they always are. Elaina and Caleb met playing a computer game. Ultima Online. I remember hearing about that game, but never playing it. They got to know each other better, phone calls happened, but they [...]
Jessica + Mason | Engaged
Jessica and Mason are getting hitched in April and I cannot wait for the wedding. These two grew up in Denver and have known each other forever. A whole entourage of friends will be arriving from Colorado to celebrate with them, including 18 people in the wedding party! And a party it will be. They’ve rented a vacation home up in Cave Creek where they and their friends will stay leading up to and even after the wedding. Can’t even imagine how much fun that will be. The house is supposedly awesome, and if rumor is true, has an in-ground [...]
Mike is a Phoenix Wedding Photographer based in Arizona and can be contacted via all the normal methods and then some.